


A Cat, A Dog And A Stag Walk Into A Bar...

by Black_Dog (Xilianr)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dealing With Trauma, Domestic Fluff, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Near Death Experiences, Nightmares, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Painting, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reader-Insert, Trauma, very light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 13:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16176443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xilianr/pseuds/Black_Dog
Summary: He had lived and they had died. It was not the first time nor would it be the last. He was home, on leave, therapy ordered to help him come to terms. His therapist had this stupid idea that painting would help him process the nightmares.Problem was, Levi was adamn goodpainter, and these were his worst nightmares.Thankfully his loving partners were there too. Ready to share with him even the worst his heart could suffer, there to glue the pieces back to whole.





	A Cat, A Dog And A Stag Walk Into A Bar...

**Author's Note:**

> Who would ever want to be an ill omen? Me. Totally me.

_“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before-“_

Levi woke up, tears streaming his cheeks. The bed was empty beside him. Judging by the light coming in it was closer to sunset than sunrise. No wonder he was alone in bed. He balled up. Gunfire started echoing on a battlefield he had already left behind. He shut his eyes to shut out the tragedy burned into his mind, but it did not work.

 

~~

 

It had happened again. You knew better than to drag him out of his hugging himself so tightly. Touching him when he was like this was too dangerous. You had called to him, turned on the light, but he stayed huddled in bed. You swallowed hard. Seeing your husband like this tore at your heart. You leaned in the doorway, not leaving, not coming in more.

“Still here, Lev. Not going anywhere.” You waited for any sign he was back in the room with you, not still off wherever his mind had gone. You always felt so helpless when this happened.

“(F/N)?” His voice sounded strained.

“In the doorway. You want me to come in?” You gave him the moment he needed to register your words, his location.

“Yeah. Yeah, please.”

You walked to the bed. You climbed up slowly, letting every move be easily followed. He was wound up so tight that the slightest thing could make him snap. You rested a hand on his hip as you laid down behind him.

“What if you die?” Levi was definitely not in a good headspace.

“What?”

He rolled over, revealing his tear washed face. He was no longer crying but a few damp lashes gave away that he had stopped very recently. His black hair was tussled from a restless sleep. His steel blue eyes were haunted. The nightmares again.

“What happens to you, after you die?” He was asking with a vulnerability that he had out grown decades ago. He was a hardened soldier, special ops no less. The child like fragility in asking about you after your death was one of a toddler asking after flying reindeer.

“Like, where will I go?” You wanted to answer him correctly, the wrong words having so much potential to harm.

“Yes.” He was playing with your wedding ring as he often did when worry had him in its grips. This was an easy question now. You had an answer for this long before the asking.

“Route 66. One of the long stretches that doesn’t have any tourist stops or curves. I’ll sit on the side of the road.” You waited to see if that was what he needed to hear.

“Like, ghost you, sitting at the side of the road making people freak out?” He tugged on your ring to be sure it would not just fall off. It always made you snicker when he did that, no matter how serious the conversation.

“No, as a dog. Big. Black. Dog. Sort of wolf like? Intimidating enough that they won’t stop but intriguing enough that they will look in the mirror to see me. But I’ll be gone. I’ll haunt that stretch of road until I get bored and find a new place to haunt.”

“Oh.” Levi seemed to really be thinking about what you said. He was thinking much too hard for something so outside anyone’s understanding, beyond any type of control. “I’m gonna go to the studio. Tell him I’m sorry.”

“You sure? Mike was hoping you’d be there. He’ll be disappointed.” You hated to throw Mike under the guilt-trip bus but Levi had skipped out on dinner twice now. Mike was going to think it was personal.

“Tch. Tell him I started painting.” Levi was already up and out the door before you could try a second plea.

“Shit.”

 

~~

 

“He is not avoiding you. I promise. He just started painting and, well, you know how ‘tunnel vision’ he gets. He had a nightmare just before. It’s been rough.” You hoped the worry would ebb in Mike’s eyes faster than the disappointment had.

“What was the nightmare, you know?” Mike was rubbing your shoulder. You relaxed into it. You wished Mike would get back from his opening the new site sooner.

“No clue. He asked if I knew where I would go after I died.”

“What did you say?” Mike was the one to normally get the weird dream related questions.

“Told him about Route 66.” You smiled to yourself. You knew Mike would remember.

“Ha! Damnit pup that was our secret.” Mike did not actually sound the slightest bit annoyed in your sharing it.

“It still is. Just his too, now.” You rested your head on Mike’s shoulder. You reached up to brush his long bangs a little more out of his aqua eyes. The way they softened as they took in your worry was all the evidence of love you needed.

“I told him about my wanting to be a white stag.”

You kissed Mike’s cheek. It had been a cold night when those stories got told. It was nice, the pair of you had wanted to haunt the world, not move on, if given a choice. He had wanted to remind others of the Wild Hunt, a white stag that could never be caught. He wanted to walk among tombstones, overgrown by time. It had made you feel like quite the pair. A ghost stag wandering an old cemetery and you a hound haunting a rarely visited length of road.

“When will you be home? We miss you.” You knew the answer but it felt better getting Mike to say it. The four hour drive was a chore but worth it for the chance to see each other.

“Two more weeks. Then you will have one more moody bastard to deal with,” Mike joked. ‘Moody’ for Mike was nothing compared to ‘normal’ Levi.

“Lucky me.”

 

~~

 

“Welcome home!” You were a tangle of limbs flopping onto Mike’s not fully awakened form. Getting home at the crack of dawn, he had opted to crash on the couch instead of waking Levi by joining you. He ran his hands through his shaggy blonde hair, trying to get it out of his face. You kissed playfully along the thin beard running along his chin.

“Lee still sleeping?” Mike stopped your wiggling to settle you so that you straddled his hips. You rested your head on his chest, listening to his calming heartbeat.

“Studio. Last two weeks. Seriously grumpy if I even asked after his coming out.” You went limp as strong arms squeezed you a little more into your second home, Mike’s embrace.

“Should have checked, could have just come to bed.” Mike’s chin rubbed softly on the top of your head.

“You two look comfy.” Levi was leaning in the doorway of his studio. He had dark circles under his eyes.

You felt Mike tensing under you. It was never a good sign for Levi to not be sleeping when he was holed up in his studio. Mike rolled you onto the couch, going to Levi for a hugged greeting. Mike towered over Levi’s five foot three frame but still managed to give an appearance of holding each other as equals. Mike traced the line over Levi’s wrist where a leather band, handmade just for him, normally rested.

“Needed to take it off to paint. I need a shower. Can we talk once I’m out?” Levi started clinging to Mike in a way that had you wondering if he was asking for company. The shower could hold all three of you, you had already tested.

“Yeah. Want to eat?” Mike was letting the length of Levi’s undercut card through his fingers.

“Just tea,” he peeked around Mike, to look imploringly at you.

“Morning tea and coffee for all.” You gave a wide smile over how he enjoyed your tea best.

With no couples shower in the works, you and Mike made a morning meal to suit the three of you. Tea and coffee were your task unless Mike asked more of you. The professional cook liked to use you as his helper but smaller things went faster if you just stayed out from under foot. Mike, never ceasing to impress, whipped up a feast in the same time it took you to make the beverages.

Levi was out of the shower without coaxing, a good sign. He ate enough to appease Mike and you were pleased to watch him drain his cup three times. You and Mike finished before Levi was willing to open up the shadows in his head.

Levi led the way into his studio. The smell of fresh paint along with three freshly prepped canvases told you Levi might not be leaving after this talk. He put on the wrist band that matched the ones on you and Mike, along with the wedding band that complimented yours. He did not tug the ring more than twice, a sign his OCD was not getting the better of him yet.

“I had a nightmare, about us. We were on that road trip I took with Kenny. To move in with him, after my mom died? It was weird. We were all grown but Kenny was treating us like little kids, like I was six all over again. We were all piled in the back seat. He wreaked the car. I lived. Only... only I lived. I collapsed and woke up. Couldn’t get it out of my head. Seeing your bodies. Like _theirs_.”

Mike was hugging you from behind, arm across your shoulders. Both of you had your eyes misting under the understanding of what the man you loved was working through.

“Had to put it down, get it out.” Levi walked over to the canvas he had been working on, care used in turning it.

The large canvas was filled completely. It was beautiful in a horrifically macabre sort of way. The background was a car wreak on the edge of a forest. There were three broken forms littering the smoking wreckage. The contrast of the verdant greens with garish reds made the deaths more visually interesting than something like this should have been.

Having met Kenny you recognized the form thrown through the windshield. The body crumpled over the passenger seat was clearly Mike by the size alone, even as tattered as his death had left him. Looking at the broken form that was how your husband dreamed your death, was not easy. It was not that you were dead in the painting, but that you knew this image had been pressing at the back of his eyes so vividly.

It was a tragic painting but you smiled. Mike chuckled and even Levi relaxed under the approval. There was a fourth body, fallen to the ground, all shadows under his onyx hair. This fourth body justified the foreground. It was three silhouetted heads looking at the conclusion of their lives. A stag, a dog... and a cat.

“I figure if you two are going to be romping about down here, I could join you. I’d want to be a black cat. Crossing assholes’ paths, giving them rotten luck. Maybe on the road with you?” Levi came to sandwich you between your men.

“I’m sure we could find a nice stretch of road near an old cemetery. Makes for a great spooky story.” You kissed Levi’s cheek, eyes still taking in all the details of his work.

“Or a set up for a joke. Kenny was telling a bunch of his shitty jokes before... that. His last words were: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.”

“So a cat, a dog and a stag walk into a bar-“ You cut Mike off with an elbow to the ribs as Levi groaned.

“You know he is going to keep saying that forever now, right?” You commiserated in Levi’s ear.

“Forever and ever, until not even death do we part.” A weight lifted and Levi exited his studio, intentions of spending the day in the company of his partners ringing clear.

“You’re gonna wish you fell in love with people with a better sense of humor,” you giggled.

“I’m hilarious, what are you talking about?” Mike feigned indignation before crumbling to a roguish smirk.

“I don’t think either of you are funny. I’m just a stray cat you fed once and now you can’t get rid of me.” Levi was looking over the movie rack as he spoke in his perfect deadpan.

Mike and you collapsed to the couch in laughter. This was going to be a wonderful eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> And that is (loosely) the story behind my "darker" stories pseudonym.
> 
> The "ghost stag" is a real rumor I heard back when I lived in Buffalo, New York. Never got to see it myself but I'm sure we would have been fast friends.


End file.
